Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #26051 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-03-01
• Rating: Suitable for 18 years and over
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 100 minutes

Amazon.co.uk Review
Based on an Ian McEwen novel, The Comfort of Strangers is directed by Paul Schrader at his most portentous. A young couple holidaying in Venice are taken up by an older more sophisticated pair. Christopher Walken as the Eurotrashy Roberto portrays with considerable vigour the sort of smooth stranger from whom anyone who has ever seen this sort of movie ought to run a mile, and Helen Mirren as his complaisant wife is hardly less sinister. Rupert Everett and Natasha Richardson are believably obtuse as the lovers who fail to understand exactly what they are being sucked into.

This ought to be a far better film than it is: Harold Pinter's script is elliptically menacing and Angelo Badalamenti's score attractively gloomy. But in the end The Comfort of Strangers presents a rather low-rent vision of decadence: Roberto's praise of Margaret Thatcher and habit of photographing the unwary and beautiful are not quite enough to make the film's shocking climax entirely plausible. The DVD contains no additional features other than the obligatory theatrical trailer. --Roz Kaveney

Synopsis
Adapted by Harold Pinter from Ian McEwan's novel, THE COMFORT OF STRANGERS follows a pair of indifferent lovers, Colin and Mary, who travel to the beautiful, romantic and mysterious Italian city of Venice to rekindle their love. As their emotionally icy relationship shows signs of thawing, the couple meets another duo: Robert and Caroline. Little do Colin and Mary realise, Robert and Caroline have been following them, with the most sinister plans in mind. To many, Venice is a city made for lovers, to McEwan's characters the location's romantic image simply disguises a forbidden world of dark sexuality and murder.

Customer Reviews

One for the charity shop
I rarely give five stars in reviews, but equally I rarely give less than three, but in this case ...

This film (along with "Don't Look Now") was recommended by a friend as a countermeasure to my praise about the beauty of Venice. And, indeed, the city is well-represented throughout the film.

My partner and I sat down and were engaged with the plot as husband-and-wife Rupert Everett and Natasha Richardson are slowly drawn further and further into the world of the Italian Christopher Walken and his Canadian wife, played by Helen Mirren. Everett, incidentally, plays well the role of a loving yet disconcerted husband in this film. (Who says a gay actor cannot convincingly play a straight man?) Walken is very good as the sinister Venetian.

So why only two stars? Well, the build-up of the tension is well-handled, but the ending, the climax of the film, is so laughably preposterous, if it were not so disgustingly violent. We felt short-changed. And since we could not conceivably envisage a time when we would want to sit down and watch this movie again (despite the views of Venice), the DVD now sits in the cupboard awaiting the next charity bag that drops through the letterbox.

Cancel those tickets for Venice....
The film starts slowly, with some beautiful shots of Venice- its almost like a travelogue but there is a strange atmosphere between holidaymakers Natasha Richardson and Rupert Everett. However, the film comes to life with the entry of Christopher Walken and this is vintage Walken- with menace just simmering below the surface.

For me the film didn't work as well as Ian McEwan's novel, Walken is great (one of his best ever performances) and Rupert Everett is very good as a typical middle-class Englishman. However, I wasn't convinced by Natasha Richardson's performance and Helen Mirren's part was so small it seemed a waste of her talents.

This film isn't one for fans of action movies, it's slow-paced throughout but the the tension does build to the denoument. The love scenes between Richardson and Everett are nicely filmed and indeed the whole film looks stunning- I'd have goneout and booked a trip to Venice if it wasn't for the fear of meeting Walken's character.

Effectively ghoulish
The pairing of Christopher Walken and Helen Mirren as a definitely twisted married couple is an inspired one, as is the pairing of Rupert Everett and Natasha Richardson as a younger duo who have decided to visit Venice on their honeymoon. The older couple, Venetian residents, is made up of an English woman and a rural Italian man (Walken, with an interesting accent) who live what appears to be a simple life.

Based on a stinging novella by Ian McEwan, the film is a study in intense self-absorption, to the point of obsession. Both couples are guilty of this sin in different ways--the younger one hedonistically, and the older one in a decidedly more sinister fashion.

When they intersect the obvious sparks--chemical, sexual, and otherwise--fly thick and fast and this makes for strong, compelling cinema. Paul Schrader, the director, has done a superb job capturing the atmosphere and tone of McEwan's novella. What always intrigues me is the "mixed" casting of actors from different countries in the same film. The presence of Walken, the only American among the otherwise British cast, provides an intense presence made all the more so by his out of whack persona.

This "out-of-whackness" reaches a crescendo at the film's climax which should not be revealed here. This is a strange, dark film that stings as much as the original novella and does so abundantly. McEwan, one of the most intelligent fiction writers around, cleverly sets this macabre story in Venice whose dark labyrinthine passages Schrader takes maximum advantage of, giving the film the creepy atmosphere it needs to make it so resonant.

Recommended.